OBJECTIVE: To inventory and prepare a descriptive and partly illustrated catalog of the plants in current use as folk remedies in Middle America -- the Bahamas, West Indies, adjacent northern South America; Central America and Mexico. Some of the plant materials and practices have been introduced into the United States by West Indian and Latin American immigrants and may function as unknown factors in illness in this country. Field work in Curacao, Coro, Venezuela, and coastal South Carolina, 1965-1974, has shown a relationship between the ingestion of tannin-rich plant decoctions and a high rate of esophageal cancer. Non-use of suspect plants in contiguous regions corresponds to prevailing low rates of esophageal cancer. APPROACH: The Principal Investigator, through field work, has acquired a body of first-hand knowledge of many of these plants and their uses, has photographed and collected specimens of many of them and has supplied quantities of some of them for bioassay and for phytochemical study. The botanical subject files of the Morton Collectanea, University of Miami, contain a wealth of information on the plants used as remedies in the American tropics. Processing of pertinent literature is continuing under this grant and data gathering will be continued in further field work.